i never wanted to kiss her lips,
just hold her hand
maybe kiss her cheeks because she suited a gentler kind of treatment
something softer and more delicate, quiet;
quieter than the constant raging storms inside my stomach,
inside my mind
(never my heart)

those plump lips
she bit them raw when nervous, and they swelled
blossomed ruby as she looked at me
like she knew this wouldn't last
her eyes remained doughy and mellow
when i met her gaze.

my smile stung as it stretched the lines left by winter's bite
and split them open once more.
she brushed the blood beads away with her fingertips
with a touch so reverent that, for a moment, i thought
maybe she felt as though she were touching rosary beads instead,
and i held my breath to stop myself from chasing her
touch, and pressing her down into the mattress

unholy, chasing pleasure.
both agnostic, but she was much more pure than i;
chivalries always in mind, i wanted to preserve that.
there's always been something inside me
that presses down the animalistic urges with
a conscience caught on consideration and something akin to courtly love-
i wanted to woo her before i pursued her

but i never got further than pressing my lips to her forehead,
wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
i laced my fingers with hers but avoided tying any knots.
i am not a man to be bound,
too free-spirit, too restless, too claustrophobic;
a few months in and i was choking on the ghost of a future;
she kissed me first and i suffocated on the phantom of her hopes for us:
a future that didn't yet exist,
and i didn't want it to.
i never kissed her; i never let her kiss me again.

we tangled fingers over the duvet
the television a background noise to our unsteady breaths,
shallower
than my love for her
i enjoyed her quiet affection like one might enjoy curling into a blanket when cold and ill.
i wanted her smiles, i wanted to fill her memories with goodness
so that she never need feel hopeless, like all men are the same
so that she had something to smile about when she looked back on us;
once the bitterness of our breakup had left her mouth-
whenever that eventual end would be-
she could savour the taste of our sweet, slow-burn, love affair
and be reminded that not all love is true love, but nor is all love heart breaking

i broke her heart anyway.

nobody ever taught me how cruel kindness could be.

******* it, you left a heart at the end of your message and i felt my own lurch in my chest
i don't love you
i won't love you
but just for a second,
one precious, fleeting moment
you flirted with the fragility of my mind by showing me you cared
and, for a moment,
it felt like maybe i could;
maybe i could love you
but i don't

and i won't

i'm sick and tired of these mind games.
you push me away and pull me back
like a yo-yo, or an emotional punching bag
(what's the difference anymore anyway?)
always in equal measures
but i've never felt more imbalanced

i hate you for assuming things
i hate you for making me feel things
you think you're the only victim in this?
you're wrong
and every ounce of my self loathing could never make you seem right

i'm tired of your every word hitting home
i'm tired of the way your anger breaks my bones
i'm tired of feeling like every move i make is a mistake
i'm tired of you making me ill

for ****'s sake
just leave me alone
(don't)

i hunch my shoulders even though i'm trying to straighten my spine
i'm standing alone at this bus stop; the morning is darker and colder
than me, somehow. i clench my teeth against a bitter wind and
try not to think about the way i barely notice the chill cutting through me.
there's a death grip around my ribs - i struggle to inhale properly
but sometimes i find myself breathing just enough to make a small dent on the air

the combined weight of my phone in the left pocket of my skinny jeans
and my hand gripping my wallet in the right pocket
has my waistband slipping below my hips, jeans just-barely holding on,
and the precariousness of their position - half falling, half hanging -
has me thinking that they fit me better than they seem to.
i relate to them more than i've related to anybody in a long time.

the sun is only just rising at the edge of the eastern sky,
casting an eerie winter glow over this ice-bitten village.
i like these early mornings, my fellow villagers,
the few that are out and about as early as i am,
ambling sleepily to their sunrise starts
and even though i drank my morning coffee, i'm drunk on my lust for sleep.

i blink my bleary eyes and blatantly stare at the old couple
cautiously hobbling over slippery cobblestone,
walking sticks in their outer hands and inner palms clasped
together. the way they grip each other tightly tells me
they trust each other not to let the other fall;
the rings on their fingers tell me they fell for each other a long time ago
and i wonder how many times they pulled each other down over the years

as i catch sight of my bus approaching, slow behind a nervous driver
i'm left thinking about people, and college, and life
how everything seems simultaneously meaningful and meaningless,
all for something - yet, really, kind of all for nothing.
i could walk away and go home, settle into my bed and let sleep pull me under
away from my thoughts, naked and no longer bound by a binder,
comfortable in my skin the way i can never be in public

i don't. i step on the bus, and flash my bus pass at the driver
climb the stairs to sit in the front chairs by the windows
watch life pass by as the engine rumbles into motion.
i'm painfully aware of the way my ribs protest when i slouch in my seat
and my bed tempts me once more as i yawn into my weather-chapped hand.
i don't. college calls, friends await. perhaps it's all pointless
sometimes that's what my philosophy class teaches me
but i'd much rather live it out and see

please don't shake me
'cause i'm bottling all of this up and i don't want to explode
i'm begging you to keep my cap sealed shut
tight, so nothing spills
i'm not capable of cleaning up after myself so let's just do everyone a favour
and avoid making a mess

lately all my illnesses have me feeling backed into corners,
i feel so trapped, weighed down by debt and regret
i have no escape; this is the way my life is doomed to play out
and oh how i wish this were all just some silly game gone too far because at least then it'd find its eventual end
but no mother is about to tell the children when enough is enough
to apologise
say "sorry"
for locking me in the closet,
for making me want to stay in bed and waste the days away,
for making me hate myself so much that i'm convinced my disorders are more sane than i am.

these children know no boundaries
and worst of all is that they're my own; i am incapable of disciplining them, of taking control—
there's a reason i never wanted kids in the first place,
their ***** little fingers plucking at my brain and soiling my house.

Depression is the oldest—i had him before i even realised he was mine
Anxiety was next, and suddenly i knew why people used the phrase "terrible two"
i found myself juggling twins without really knowing where they came from: Suicidalthoughts and Eatingdisorder
once, i nearly gave them all up
as well as hope, and dreams, and life in general—
being a single father is hard.

i managed to put one or two of them in time-out for a while but there's only so long you can leave a child alone before it becomes
abusive
i tried my best at sharing the responsibility once
let myself fall in love only to find that it's not just children that can be abused—adults can, too
when i left her, my children's behaviour became so severe i almost felt like they were the ones that were heartbroken
that girl made everything so much worse

sometimes i wonder if i'd have opted for abortion, had i known i was going to parent such savage diseases.

00:31 and it's been about an hour since i saw you'd removed the word "happiness" from your caption
and ever since then it's been all i can do to
overthink; it's all i can ever do
wondering if, maybe, just maybe, you'd finally seen what i see
how i am not good enough for you

i lose myself inside these thoughts at night when loneliness is my only company
and darkness is my only right hand man, doing me no wrong
i think about the times i've held your hand and then suddenly
he hugs me tighter than anybody ever has, darkness, that old friend of
mine - something which you are yet to be... hopefully
i'd be yours, too, if you'd have me

but i'm overthinking again, just always overthinking
you said you needed time before we could begin now i'm starting to think we never will
i get the need for space, i really do
i'm just so insecure i feel like i'll be replaced by you

baby

you give me panic attacks

and i think about you, your smile, your laugh
how you removed "happiness" from your caption on that photo of us
and now i'm wondering if i was the one that did it somehow, thinking maybe i ****** up already
how is it that we're not even together and i can already feel myself rattling
my nerves responding to a break-up that hasn't even happened
i guess that's just part of how broken i really am

i closed my eyes and let my head hit the pillow three hours ago
how is it that i'm more wide awake now than i was then?
all i want to do is sleep yet here i am
my mind a merciless prison - i tell you: thinking murders me
i'm begging you to figure yourself out before my paranoid anxiety does it for you
please

i'm such an impatient man
patience is a virtue, they say, and i guess i have neither
patience nor virtue
just another of the many ways that
i'm not good enough
for you.